Blow Boys Blow – halyard shanties family

List of the Blow Boys Blow – halyard shanties family

Interesting Facts about the Blow Boys Blow – halyard shanties family

Blow Boys Blow was a shanty in which the singer often repeated the solo lines, to string out on a long haul.

Stan Hugill, says, the halyard is a word invented by combining two words “Haul” and “Yard” and we have “Halyard”.

According to Stan Hugill, it was two hard pulls, and after every pull, the yard goes up a couple of inches. Three sails have been hoisted (those with raising up yards) to be raised in a single mast: Upper Topsail, Upper Topgallant, and Royal, in those sails, were hoisted to the singing of “Halyard Shanties”. It was one of the hardest work on the ship.

When Shantyman sings line keeping the line from the top usually with the second mate, he was singing the line of the verse, this was waiting time for a job when the chorus starts on, all crew down bellow, through the patent block (usually 3-4 sailors), did a crazy pull on the rope, and an end, another pull of the rope in end, this happens twice, and this is the base construction on halyard shanty.

Short story of the Blow Boys Blow – halyard shanties family

This shanty has three patterns:
(a) The Guinea Slaver;
(b) The Buck Ship (A Yankee China Clipper);
(c) The Harry Tate Ship (English skit on Yankee Packets);
This version (The Guinea Slaver), Stan Hugill obtained from Australian seamen, ex-“Manuerwa” and “Silver Pine”.

My private collection of books

Shantyman library – you will see descriptions and recommendations of positions worth diving into, true sources of knowledge about sea shanties. To gain knowledge about sea shanties is the main ultimate purpose of this library, every book in this library is somehow related to sea shanties and before mast songs.

More involvement in Traditional Sea Shanties

You can find this record here or directly listen below. If you want to discuss the record or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here.